Location: NORTHAMPTON, Virginia

Baylee was a Democrat from Eastville, a town in Virginia's Eastern Shore. Baylee became a Democrat after an Eastern Shore county chairman approached him about an upcoming election. Eastville, with its sizable black population, had voted Republican in recent years. Democrats knew that wooing black voters with their often racist platform was difficult. One thing worked to the Democrats' advantage:...

"We will be unable to give our children any remnant of our patrimony unless the whole oyster industry is restored without delay." William K. Brooks wrote these words in 1891, fifty-six years and 400,000,000 bushels of oysters after the beginning of commercial oyster revolution. The natural beds of the Chesapeake were being depleted so rapidly that Brooks predicted a complete extinction of "a free...